Untitled (Perfect Lovers)
This is actually a homework assignment for a class in pharmacy school, but I was really feeling my inner art connoisseur writing this piece, so I thought it fitting to share. Enjoy~
Prompt: And for those of you who either had a love (or hate) response to this topic, here's an interesting activity for you -- Post a photo of a "major" work of art (painting, sculpture, architecture) that illustrates your understanding of the cellular aspects of aging. Describe how the artwork is relevant to this topic for you.
I was really excited to see this prompt because there was a piece that I learned of recently that really took my breath away.
Untitled (Perfect Lovers)- by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991.
Description: This piece is composed of two identical clocks mounted side by side to each other. They start in synchronization, but with time, they naturally fall out of synchronization. It could be that they ran out of batteries or that the clock mechanism is naturally imperfect or by some external force. But if one of them stop, the stopped clock is fixed or replaced, and the clocks are reset back to synchronization. And the process starts again.
Meaning: The meaning was never explicitly established, so it was up to the audience’s interpretation. Torres’s partner Ross Laycock was diagnosed with AIDs in 1987 and died in 1991, so many speculate that this was an existential metaphor for his love for his partner. One interpretation from the Public Delivery compared these two clocks to “two mechanical heartbeats”, illustrating the temporal nature to life and the inevitableness of mortality and impermanence. There is a lot more meaning to unpack but I choose to mention these because it is relevant to the prompt.
Relating to cellular aging: The strongest similarity that stood out to me first were the clocks. The art’s clocks are analogous to the biological clocks that prompt changes in neuroendocrine signaling and hormone levels, and controls aging in the cells. This analogy lines up to Hayflick’s limit as well, where the biological clock controls the aging within each living cell. The synchrony of the clocks in this art piece is controlled literally by time passing. As time passes, as the clocks duly continue ticking, the more asynchronous they get from each other. This line of thought leads us to the wear and tear theory as well, where wear and tear is a result of aging, like wear and tear is a result of the clocks’ continuous ticking.
In a human, this clock cannot be regenerated. The Error Catastrophe Theory theorizes that the aging is caused by accumulating damage due to increased errors. However, in his art, the clock is regenerated indefinitely- once a clock stops working, it gets replaced and synchronized again, getting infinite second chances to stay synchronous. I like to think that this is Torres’s intention behind this piece, especially after losing his lover- their hearts were ticking clocks, and if he could have his way, he would have infinite clocks to stay next to his lover, ticking the time away together for eternity. Hence, the title of the piece: “Untitled (Perfect Lovers)”.
https://publicdelivery.org/felix-gonzalez-torres-clocks/
https://collections.dma.org/artwork/5324909
Here is an article about another artist who produced a similar piece, but added mechanisms to purposely keep the clocks in synchrony! https://magazine.art21.org/2011/02/01/art-design-and-clocks/#.Y0JTtHbMLSI
